


Rumbelle vs. Frankenwolf: Shortbread Stars

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Are you really grown-ups?, Ficlet, Fluff, Food Fight, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7629163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cookies can be any shape you want them to be. Right? We're all adults here."</p><p>No. No they were not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BarPurple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/gifts).
  * Inspired by [On The Rocks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7201814) by [BarPurple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple). 



> Well. This one here is something the dear BarPurple asked for personally after a discussion about cookies in Chapter 26 of her parent fic "On The Rocks".

Christmas was mostly the same in Storybrooke. Decorations, snow, Hallmark movies on TV, ungodly Maine weather, the odd power outage, Christmas cards, gift-shopping, and baking. Lots of baking. From Granny Lucas's fruitcake to Mary-Margaret's bread pudding to even Mayor Mills' apple turnovers. And, apparently, the pink Victorian on the edge of town was no different the week before Christmas.

Gold, Victor had never known until this year, made the most amazing chocolate chip cookie in Maine. (Shortbread, he was reminded in a Scottish accent whenever he brought it up, chocolate chip shortbread.) Buttery, melt-in-your-mouth, delicious cookies. And Belle, who with a few jingle bells and a curly-toed pair of shoes would make a perfect Christmas elf, had coaxed her boyfriend into producing a few dozen to give away at the library's Christmas In Storybrooke event on Saturday in addition to gingerbread men.

(And gingerbread women, Belle and Ruby insisted.)

Actually, standing on the toes of her patent leather heels and wearing that cap-sleeved green dress with the flared short skirt, Belle looked pretty Christmas-Elfy right then. There was a white apron on over the dress spattered with flour, and Belle was busy rolling out the third batch of dough while Gold placed the freshly baked cookies on a wire rack. They came in two shapes, circles like ornaments, and stars like, er, stars.

Belle was considering letting children decorate cookies at the event or not, but Victor was leaning towards Gold's opinion of, "Absolutely not, unless you want icing and sprinkles on everything in the building.

Ruby had no input because she was too busy stuffing a star cookie with a broken corner into her mouth. Again.

"Where did you get all these, Gold?" she asked eventually, brushing crumbs off her mouth and motioning to the small pile of plastic cookie cutters between her and Victor on the counter. "There's a sock, or a stocking I guess, and a squirrel, the gingerbread man, classic, and a piggy, and an elephant-Is that a foot?"

Silently and slowly, Victor slid Ruby's full wineglass away from her. She could wait a little bit on a refill. Although, interestingly, there _was_ an orange plastic footprint cookie cutter in the pile.

"I'm not sure really," Gold shrugged. "I just picked one up here, another there. Suddenly I have a drawer full of cookie cutters."

Victor prodded a lightning-bolt shaped one. "How many cookie cutters make a drawer full? Like ten? Twelve?"

"About two dozen, I think. Plus the one Belle bought."

"A book?" he guessed.

"No," Gold shook his head, holding up a dark blue plastic....

Ruby squealed a little. "Oh my god, Belle! Is that a shoe? Girl, where did you find that? I want one!"

"You really wanna start a cookie cutter drawer?" Victor asked. He wasn't against it, there were odder things to collect, even accidentally. Plus, he could buy Ruby a red plastic shoe and maybe a paw print and moon-shaped one to get her started for Christmas. He did have a new laptop sitting in his office desk drawer where she couldn't find it, but a trio of cookie cutters wouldn't put him in debt at least.

"Well, maybe. I mean you gotta admit cookies taste better in shapes. Like grilled cheeses should be cut in triangles, Christmas cookies should always be shaped like stars."

"I like the round ones," Belle said. "It's easier to dip in milk."

"No, Ruby's right," Victor disagreed. "Stars are the way to go. That way you've got the crispy points."

"The points burn," Gold shook his head. "And break off. Circles."

"Stars!" Ruby said, waving another broken cookie at the pawnbroker.

"Lucas, the points are broken, I can see them-Ow!"

Belle paused in rolling out the dough, looking up after detecting a very rapid movement preceding the "ow" from Gold.

"Ruby Meghan Lucas!" Belle jerked her head up, pausing in rolling out shortbread dough. "Did you really just throw a cookie at my boyfriend like a third-grader in a cafeteria?"

Ruby sat up straighter, feigning a look of innocence until a broken corner bounced off her forehead. "Hey! Gold!"

"Rum!"

"What? She started it," Gold shrugged, with an unrepentant smirk on his face.

Belle opened her mouth to tell her boyfriend and her best friend to stop assaulting each other with baked goods, (especially goods that she needed and had to present five dozen off in less than twenty four hours,) when she felt a small, still-warm cookie disc hit her in the neck. "Aaah! What-Victor!"

Victor took another round cookie and flicked his wrist, tossing it at her like a mini-Frisbee. "Hey look! Your round cookies are good for something after all!"

Ruby giggled, leaning over on her boyfriends arm helplessly.

Then Belle, innocent Belle, pure-hearted Belle, good-natured Belle, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly Belle, picked up the bowl of sugar crystal sprinkles she'd had out to sprinkle on iced cookies and threw the sparkly red contents at them. Dusted in sugary decoration and utterly taken by surprise, Victor grabbed Ruby and yanked her down on the floor, grabbing a green bowl of sugar crystals with his other hand...

* * *

Jefferson had promised to help Belle decorate her Christmas cookies, he was an abysmal cook, but his design sense was flawless no matter the medium.

Besides, if he left it to the other three, Victor would decorate gingerbread men to look like cadavers, Gold would leave everything plain, and Ruby might make stylish cookies but only in red. Clearly Jefferson was an indispensable part of this process. He let himself in, juggling his box of quality decorating supplies in his hands, and kicked the door shut behind him.

That was when he noticed the ruckus in the kitchen.

"AAHHH! It's down my shirt!"

"Hahah- _Eeek_!"

"They've got icing, aahh! It's cold!"

"Flour flour flou-" Victor's warning was cut off in coughs and giggles from one of the girls. Probably Belle.

_What the devil was going on in there?_

Jefferson cautiously stuck his head into the kitchen and was met with an absolute mess: Flour scattered everywhere, overturned bowls of cheap sprinkles and cookie sheets, and a cooking utensils discarded on either side of the kitchen island. On this side was Victor and Ruby, Victor still choking and white dust on his head and shoulders, and like Ruby he had bits of red sugar crystals stuck in his hair. Ruby had something that looked like part of a gingerbread man crumbled in her hair too, and blue food coloring staining her top.

Ruby peeked over the top of the counter and Belle sprang up, tossing a broken star at her friend which squarely hit her in the forehead and knocked Ruby back on top of her choking boyfriend.

"WHAT THE **HELL** IS GOING ON IN HERE?" Jefferson demanded.

_Whack!_

"AAHH! My eye!" Jefferson staggered back, almost dropping his box and bottle. "Dammit Rum!"

Gold, with a bit of help from Belle, got up from behind the counter. He had crumbs and brown sugar in his hair, and a spatter of pale green frosting on his cheek and shirt. Belle must've gotten hit with a handful of something floury because the right side of her hair was white, and there was bits of frosting on her too. And...was that an egg splattered on her apron?

"Hello Jeff," Gold nodded, perfectly composed while Belle was biting her lip to hold in giggles. "Happy you could make it."

"Oh, hey you!" Ruby looked up from where she lay on her back over the top of Victor's back. "Wanna cookie?"

"Have a star, they're the best ones," Victor added.

"We are not starting that again," Ruby said, picking a gingerbread arm and nibbling on it.  "There's not enough ammunition left. Oh. What's in the box Jefferson?"

Jefferson hugged the box closer to his chest with an angry glare.

"Don't you dare come any closer!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short epilogue, answering the question of what happened next. Enjoy!

Jefferson was kind enough to help clean up the mess once he extracted a promise that not so much as one single nonpareil would be used for anything other than the express purposes of decorating cookies and only cookies.

(He double-checked the wording of his agreement with Gold, too.)

After that, it was quite simple. Gold and Victor made the dough, (Victor mostly measured ingredients,) Belle rolled and cut the dough, and once it was baked, Ruby and Jefferson decorated them. As the deciding vote, Jefferson declared the star-shaped cookies superior to the round ones, but then added gingerbread men were the best of all the cookie-shapes.

There was no war this time, as per agreement.

As the baking process went along, enough cast-off cookies and dough (and a few of the tastier decorations Jefferson provided,) were consumed to make dinner a rather unappealing prospect. Gold offered a sandwich if anyone was hungry, and Jefferson was the only one to bother. By the time they were all finished, There were something like four dozen stars, four dozen circles, and five dozen gingerbread men all decorated and packed into Tupperware containers for the library's event tomorrow afternoon.

And some leftovers sent home with the "assistants".

Gold and Belle finished cleaning up and engaged in a short, mini-food fight, mainly started because Belle booped a bit of icing on her boyfriend's nose and he smeared some across her cheek. Food fight may have been a bit of an exaggeration because it end with them and the leftover icing upstairs...

* * *

Mayor Regina wasn't much of a reader, but as mayor, of course, she made her appearance at the library's Christmas event. She didn't have to say anything since it wasn't a town sponsored event, really, so she just stood around in one of her favorite red dresses and smiled when the cameras clicked.

Eventually she wound up standing by Gold at the table his little librarian had set up for snacks. Apparently Belle enlisted a few helpers to provide the snacks because there was one of Mrs. Lucas's fruitcake sliced on a plate, and Gold's man Mr. Dove had brought a plate of fudge set up in a pyramid. There were also cookies Belle had brought, but Regina had seen Astrid dart to the table and away again. It looked like she'd brought Hostess Powedered Donettes in a bowl...

"I imagine she burned her first idea," Gold said, wiping his powder-coated fingers on a napkin.

"Probably," Regina agreed. After deliberation, she picked up one of the gingerbread women in a red icing "santa dress" and bit the head off. (She missed Jefferson snickering behind her at that.) "Mm. Your little bookworm outdid herself on this gingerbread."

Gold nodded with a smile just a tad prouder than Regina was used to seeing. He had Dove's fudge on his little paper plate, but there were three circular shortbread cookies on his plate decorated like Christmas ornaments.

"So she did."

"She didn't wrangle you into helping, did she?" Regina smirked. She couldn't quite imagine Mr. Gold baking cookies, especially not in a black suit. "Somehow I can't imagine you in an apron."

" _Well_..." Gold started, using that tone he took when he was teasing her.

Only then Jefferson popped up and narrowed his eyes at Gold in a way that made both the mayor and the pawnbroker very confused. The town's most eccentric inhabitant jabbed a finger at Gold and said: "He doesn't wear an apron, I can tell you that!"

And then Jefferson slunk away with a plate of cookies and cake and a stack of powdered doughnuts.

There was a story there, but Regina caught the wicked sort of gleam in Gold's eye and the smirk on his face...and she promptly decided she did not need to know. Ever.

She walked away with her cookie and prayed she never did find out.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: Jefferson is going to defend those supplies with his life. They'll have to pry it from his cold, dead hands. And even then, it'll be sketchy. :)


End file.
